Illusions of An Idealized Empire

(CW: Violence, Bodily Harm, Suggestive Themes, Offensive Material)

The largest underground mining project was located several kilometers from the southernmost city in South America. It was a commission by the Greater German Reich in power in 1945 and completed in just four excruciating years of intensive labor. Many sacrificed their lives to uphold an existence obscured from the rest of the world's peripherals.

While the German armies had been decommissioned back in Europe, and the war efforts had concluded, President Truman and his peers sought out after the brightest minds for their own technological revolution classified as Operation Paperclip. The Soviets equally had their hands in the pot with an acquisition of over 2000 scientist mobilized to work in their very own secret, Operation Osoaviakhim. In addition, the Brits, by way of Operation Surgeon, and together they greatly handicapped the formal Reich from reaching their potential.

A large amount of those involved in the war efforts, scientist, soldiers, and civilians emigrated to the South American nations during this period. In 1950, the new German Reich had been erected from the ashes and there they began a secret revolution inventing ways to self-sustain it's growth and survive without the reliance of the surface world above.  

*****

Seventy-one years later, in 2019, a young tourist arrived carrying a suitcase on a secluded area by a lake. He flew his drone behind a frozen mountain when he discovered an access point to an intricate cave system behind a secret functioning power plant. His drone wandered deeper into the ice cavern illuminating its newly discovered passageway with a beam of a flashlight. The man watched intently through his goggles whilst gawking and recording the images he captured. It continued sinking in lower through hidden labyrinth underground made of concrete walls and flew through a well kept secret of pre-war architecture known to the civilization living beneath as the Great Corridors. To his surprise, the movements of his drone activated a light by way of a motion sensors, divulging more rooms in the vicinity. The drone continued exploring when it finally stopped upon a controversial symbol he recognized, engraved in gold on a section of the granite walls.

That symbol so heinous and divisive, it was eradicated from the surface world for its representation, kept only for society to vicariously ponder it's horrors in old history books and museums. Here it was propped and displayed with utmost gratification, prayed upon and worshipped among those that lived beneath. The symbol represented glory and power in their eyes and a message that drew hope that someday they will rise again and persevere.

The young drone operator was in complete shock and amusement upon witnessing its discovery. He tried to retreat his device back through the hallways tracing his route, but it fell flat upon exiting. The camera still functioned, but the drone was hit by an electromagnetic blast causing it to short circuit and spiral down to the red hand-woven rug draped through the long hallway floors.

The tourist watched from a skewed low-angle rendition of a pair of clean military jackboots marching towards it in deliberate precise steps. The man held it and raised it to his face showing his image of an older intense looking man with clean parted blonde hair and light periwinkle-blue eyes.

He stared into the lens of the camera. "Tsk, tsk. This is not good", he said in his aggressive yet soft foreign tone. "Whomever you are, operating this peculiar device. We will meet very soon, I assure you of this.".

In the surface above, the man with the drone began to shake pondering the severity of the situation. With trembling sweaty palms, he removed the goggles from his perspiring face and immediately began to plan his escape back to the hotel. His heart rate began to increase as he speedily ran to his vehicle a few meters away, parked on the side of an icy dirt road. Upon arriving, he noticed a strange tall man already waiting for him. He had short hair with a receding hairline, light eyes that stared directly to him as he approached, almost in anticipation. 

*****

Colonel General of the Five German Underground States, Hans Panzinger tapped his earlobe device and instructed his subordinate Mr. Von Fritsch his demands for the young tourist man above ground. He walked back to his office carrying the device through the long corridors while the sensor lights activated with each passing step. Once in his office, he gently placed the heavy drone on his furnished wooden desk and sat on a chair besides it.

He reached for the needle of his phonograph record player and lowered it to the black disc below, while the music of "Johannes Brahms - Wiegenlied (Op. 49)" played to his delight. He delicately fluttered the tips of his toes back and forth while he gazed at the triumphant displays of his military superiors on portraits above his wall. He turned to another distinctive propaganda poster illustrating a giant fist in long-sleeve military attire crushing caricatures of different types of human beings resembling grotesque and monstrous creatures. A subtle smirk painted his face.

Then the device on his ear alerted him. Hans tapped it once and extended and rotated his wrist in front of him. The device created a clear projection image from his watch of a badly-beaten man spewing blood from his lips and squirming on a dining-room chair.

"Ah, It was you to discover our secret? An inferior specimen, an Untermensch? What a pity. We would need to have a word with our architects about that entry-point".

The beaten man mumbled loudly from his muzzled mouth, cursing out and piercing daggers to Hans. 

"So, tell me about your day." 

While Mr. Von Fritsch, the man who captured him abruptly ripped the tape from his lips for him to commence. The innocent man screamed and stammered "W-What do you want from me?!"

"What part of that sentence did you not understand?"

Mr. Von Fritsch slapped him on the back of his head and walked in front of him, turning his back against Colonel Hans view. Hans only heard the troubling sounds of the poor man's agonizing groans with each beating more horrific than the next. Mr. Von Fritsch stepped back again where only the top of his body was visible. 

"Shall I continue now? Eh? You're going to tell me about your day?".

"I - I don't know wh-what you want me to say?! I didn't see a damn thing. Please! I told your friend here what I know... I drove from my hotel room and spent the whole day here for just one day. I swear to God! I just got here from the SCL airport last night. I came here by myself, OK?!"

Hans rolled his eyes and nodded as a gesture for Mr. Von Fritsch to continue slowly stripping the man of his dignity. Mr. Von Fritsch was an obedient hollow shell of a man who expressed no emotions from his savagery. He walked over once again turning his back to the monitor and proceeded in the vile deed.

After a brief moment that it took the poor tourist to regain his breathing patterns again, and a failed attempt to open his lumped purple bruised eye, he continued. He slowly and diligently described the events of his last three days in the small town of Puerto Williams. Colonel Hans took notes on his booklet embossed in the Reich's logo. In fact; everything in the room had their same iconic logo imprinted or meticulously designed in it's details, from the devices he held on his wrist, to the hand-crafted furniture in the office.

After listening to the tourist's recollections, Hans ushered Mr. Von Fritsch to conclude the act. The innocent man for his inquisitive excursion, was deduced to snuff footage in front of Hans who watched emotionless and apathetic.

Hans headed back to his business patrolling the city to its very specific ideology, an ideology that affirmed their only race prevailed from a war long ago that decimated the surface world into unlivable conditions from radiation fallout. The hundred thousands of German people who lived there only knew their own homogeneity's existence and nothing more. The older dying generation were forced to stay silent about their past, to breed a world ignorant of the litany of diverse thinking and tolerance.

The government in the New German Reich would continue their projects creating nuclear weaponry that would ensure the success of their thousand year Reich prevailed unperturbed. 

Unbeknownst to the Colonel, a young boy around 7 years old wandered in the hallways and peaked through the transparent windows of his office door. He stared stupefied watching Hans interacting with a display of a foreign man he thought peculiar looking. He rushed back excitedly to tell his father who had been working several offices away while his mother had worriedly scoured through the empty offices to look for him.

The little boy shouted in glee when he found her. "Mama! I just saw someone so incredible looking! And so unfamiliar!"

"Franz, where have you gone off to?" his mother tugged at his arm and scolded him, dragging him over to the lobby waiting room. 

As the little boy was pulled by his arm, he looked up to his frustrated mother. "Mama, are there people born to look very different than us?"

The young mother sighed. "Of course, honey. Some people have different shades of blue eyes, some pale brown. Some people's noses are sharper than others. The blonde or brunette hair may appear in different shades and complexions", she looked down at the boy who looked unsatisfied by her response "Why the sudden curiosity, Franz?" 

"I think I saw someone with different eyes than us".

"Oh, honey, there are some people with hazel eyes too. That give them a greenish tint, of course.".

"No. I mean..."

Franz turned to his mother smiling and stretched the ends of his eyelids with his two index fingers. "Like this!" His mother turned to look at him with a disappointed expression painted on her face and struck him.

She swayed her finger down to his pouting face. "Your papa will be done with his shift very soon and he'll be happy to see you well behaved. So be a good boy and read your magazine and don't run off again, OK?"

"Yes mama...".

Later that day, Franz had attended his primary school where he excitedly shared the story of witnessing the person on the monitor projections. His stories quickly spread like wildfire to his classmates who took a particular interest in the idea of someone different than them existing. The stories continued broadening on when the children later shared with their parents. Franz's mother became really concerned when the boy kept insisting what he saw was real. The young mother brought her boy to the local psychiatrist for an evaluation the same day. She thought maybe there was something wrong with him spreading lies of a man with such unique facial features that would never exist today. The idea became unfathomable for her, her whole life she had grown up to know only her own kind existed in the world.

The stories also spread to a group of fanatic figures, part of an underground resistance group that called themselves "Die Deutschen Allies". They were considered a cult group and a threat to the New German Reich. Their group was small but each member held essential positions in the economy including: politics, military personnel, doctors, teachers and logistics workers. Their leader was ran by a passionate charismatic man named Adolf Werner, who clung on to the tales and conspiracy theories sparking in the populous and saw truth in them. The DDA challenged the status quo and believed that there was still life outside of their underground walls of tranquility, that there was still life in the surface world and other types of people still existed. He initiated a meeting for the day to discuss the particular story sweeping throughout the state.

The meeting was held in a classroom of the primary level students after hours. It was a brief meeting with his constituents of several German men and women eager to find a meaning to their existence underground and to make a difference in this totalitarian rule.

They listened in to his speech.

Adolf stood in front of a chalkboard and watched the enthusiasm in his group's eyes.

 "As you're all aware there are dark secrets sewn into the fabrication of this society. They say we, the Germans are the last living race to live in this world we treasure dearly. God had saved us, they say. We are their perfect creations and he guides us into creating the perfect world in his vision. When I was a child, I believed these notions perpetuated by our leaders were unquestionable facts. When I was twelve, that all changed. My grandpa finally shared with me the truth of my beginning, of our beginnings. He shared with me tales about the great wars fought in Old Germany almost a third of a century ago. He set me out to live with my new parents here that raised me and concealed me from the rest of the Reich states. I shouldn't be alive today. My grandfather before he knew he would soon die after slaving away creating the infrastructure for this state, he confided in me and said, "Never forget your ancestry and where they came from". I am a descendant of those that perished and were forgotten during the creation of this new world order."

Adolf raised an emblem to the group sitting quietly on the undersized-chairs where the children sat. He raised up proudly the hexagram symbol and continued. "There are more people like me out there, that look different than us but bleed the same as we do. We need to find out where the story of the foreign man had originated. We must protect the child who spread these truths at all cost before they get to them. Friends, I urge you to be vigilant and thank you for gathering once again. Long live Die Deutschen Allies and Auf Wiedersehen. We'll meet again". 

*****

Meanwhile, certain key members of the secret government had also gathered in a small assembly hall and deemed the stories as a threat to their foundation. Colonel Hans gathered his central intelligence agency including Dr. Siegfried Wilhelm Göring who had invented an artificial intelligence system that provided an articulation of potential events that may occur. The way it worked was, one could feed it information and it would gather a likelihood of events. It was the closest way to see the future. As they fed it information, the system would come back with binary numbers and Dr. Göring was in charge of deciphering it for Hans. 

"Doctor, we can't have the chancellor getting word of this atrocity. Can you tell me what the computer had hypothesized?"

The doctor had typed into the keyboard monitoring the information in front of him. "Certainly Colonel, just waiting for a few more key components".

"Doctor?"

"I think I have something, Colonel. It reads, there is a battle and a great war fought between different factions of our society. Those that feel betrayed with the deception of the New German Reich, and our own military and government forces. The civilians prevail, there's an 89.6 % chance of this. The remnants of our civilization eventually leave the New German Reich and exit up to where the Americans, Russians and British have likely still assumed power. They evidently discover us and see us as a threat, there is another great battle that commences. It is the end of our civilization. A likelihood of 78.5 %, even with our nuclear weapon oppositions.

"This is not good news".

"Certainly Colonel. We need to put an end to this.".

"We need to find out where the story originated. Cover all grounds, cease those who had already been exposed. We are already conducting interviews with our personnel who worked on that day". 

A woman sitting in the assembly room raises her hand up. "Colonel, we have reason to believe some of the stories originated in the playground at Leipzig Primary School. I believe there is a boy that may be responsible, we got a call from a psychiatrist a few minutes ago. A young boy named Franz Heisenberg."

"Heisenberg" you say?"

"Yes, Colonel".

"There is a computer technician by that surname that worked in my division the other day to troubleshoot our computers. Well done, Franziska. Somebody get me Mr. Von Fritsch on the line.